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Are Your Thoughts and Beliefs Really Yours?

Tuesday, May 26, 2015 14:48

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(Before It's News)

27th May 2015

By Dr. Michelle Kmiec

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

To explain the concept of molding your thoughts and beliefs to someone else’s idea of what is or isn’t, we must take a look at how our minds work when it comes to believing or not believing that something exists.

Many perceive the human mind is of finite boundaries. In other words, we must be able to see things in a tangible manner; in a way that the mind can perceive the information. (Of course our minds are not finite, but the Scientific Method has not evolved to take that into account; at least not yet). We do this by putting any gathered information in some sort of order, in boxes or a file cabinet if you like, so that we are able to understand the information that enters our senses. If we see something that doesn’t make sense, we can’t just allow it to be simply something that doesn’t make sense… we must make sense out of the non-sense.

How is this done? By using previously gathered information, which at all costs must be explainable, repeatable, and tangible in order to be considered “real”. Never mind that this method excludes a multitude of existing information. Kind of like how important evidence can be thrown out of a court of law due to improper procedures.

But isn’t information and evidence still exactly what it is… information and evidence?

What happens when there is the need to prove something that isn’t based on our current definition of what is real or not? Well, there is a hierarchy of so-called credible people that we automatically trust to tell us when something is real or isn’t real. Let’s explore how this works by looking at the following playful example:

A person claims that they saw a little orange elephant with bright red dots, no bigger than a mouse, walk by. Besides being extremely unfashionable with such coloring, this occurrence may be a bit hard for you to believe. But what if it was your friend that had seen the little elephant? What would you think? Well, if you are like most of us, you might be thinking your friend may have a small problem and should seek some “professional” help!

So, what if it was the homeless fellow living on the street that saw this little orange elephant? What would you think then? I would wager a guess that many of you might be crossing to the other side of the street in a pretty fast sprint!

Now let’s say that the person who saw this unlikely creature was the very eccentric artist who is well-known for her imagination? Would this make a difference? We may think “how cute” it is that she “thinks” she saw a little orange and red elephant and, by the way, not at all unusual given the character of this creative artist.

Now let’s say that it was an influential person, such as some credible scientist, who saw this little colorful trunk-nosed animal. What would we think now? This is where we begin to really break the rules of “what is,” or perhaps where the “what is” was created.

Most of us would still probably think that this scientist had inhaled a few too many chemicals in his lab, while a few of us may stroke our chins and wonder, “What if he did see this thing? I mean, he isn’t just ‘anybody’… he’s a scientist after all!”

Okay, okay… are you still hanging with me because now it’s really starting to get good!

Now let’s say that at the most recent annual conference of the Nobel Prize winners (considered the most credible, influential people on the planet, right?) everyone saw this little orange elephant with bright red dots walking across the stage. (And I’m not even going to go crazy by saying the little elephant was dancing across the stage… he was just merely walking; because that’s more believable, right?) Of these highly regarded scientists, how many would admit they saw this little guy? How many would believe it was, perhaps, some sort of terrorist attack? And once word had gotten out, how many of us would be glued to the 24-hour sensationalist cable news channels?

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